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Thursday, June 8, 2017

Before I get into today's post I'm giving you the heads up...Britt isn't in this post either. I'm sorry! I'm trying to keep them chronological! And I'm trying to keep them a decent length {and not crazy long}. This is a bonus post on a Thursday. :)

On Friday, May 12th, our guide picked us up from the hotel with a new family we'd be traveling with {they were absolutely precious-you'll see them a lot}. Our plans for the day were the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the Acrobat Show.

We began our day at the Temple of Heaven...this was a series of buildings the emperors would visit for special ceremonies of prayer.

I'm telling you...Beijing knows how to do flowers!

Let me introduce you to the W Family...they were adopting their second child from China and we couldn't have asked for a better family to be traveling with. They were the sweetest. I could just go on and on about them. I also had this crazy sense of peace knowing they'd already been through all of this before. Beijing had several of these workout parks. It held all kinds of machines that required you to do a little work. There were some BUFF Chinese folks getting their workout on at this park.

This kid was so proud of himself!

Inside this park there was a large area where parents of single adults would meet and try to find a husband/wife for their son or daughter. Our guide told us most of the bachelor/bachelorettes are in their thirties and their parents are stressed for them so they try to find them a spouse themselves. See all the papers in front of them? Those were sheets of info about their children. We thought this was so interesting!

We took a little van ride over to the Summer Palace...my friend fell asleep on me.

The Summer Palace was one of my favorite spots...this area was designed around this lake. There were gorgeous gardens, lots of cool architecture, and an amazing story behind it.

The plan was to walk to those buildings and then take a boat ride back, but it was crazy windy this day. No boats were going out so we got our exercise. Glad I didn't overdue it at the work out park. ;)

There was a lot of walking up and then walking down.

This area was where the Emperor would go during the summer months for rest and relaxation. There used to be a water way that would go straight to Tiananmen Square. (I can't remember if it's still there.)

Our guide filled us on on the story of the Dragon Lady, who was an empress years ago. I'm not sure if the entire story was true or a bit embellished, but either way it was good. Like reality t.v. good.

The attention to detail on all these buildings was incredible.

He proved his big kid status on this day. Tons of walking, lots of steps, and he hung every step of the way.

Our last stop for the day was the Acrobat Show. See the cute guy in the neon yellow sitting in my lap? He fell asleep about two minutes after they dimmed the lights and missed the ENTIRE thing! The next day we talked about our favorite parts and someone mentioned motorcycles...he was SHOCKED there were motorcycles in the acrobat show.

At the time I had NO idea what they were saying/doing, but I later learned they were painting a sign and then if you paid $25 you could have a sign too. I'm guessing they invited people up to take pictures but I don't speak Chinese so I had no clue. All I could see was random people going up on stage while the host was talking to take photos. One lady even stood between us and the host to take some pictures. We were laughing so hard.

This was my favorite part of the show! AWESOME!

Right after this they put six or seven motorcycles in a big sphere and all drove around at the same time. Our guide told us a few years ago two motorcycles crashed into each other! Luckily, it didn't happen on our watch.

We ended this night EXHAUSTED! The acrobat show was over in time for us to have dinner at our hotel and CRASH!

The next Bringing Home Britt post is my FAVORITE day in Beijing PLUS the Great Wall! It's coming on Monday!

I'm loving your story, and I'm so happy that Britt has found a forever family in you all, but I did have to be superficial also and tell you that your sunglasses are super cute! Love that you're going off the typical aviator mommy trend! Can't wait to hear more of your story!

Please do not feel like you must apologize. This is your story. Tell it like you want to :) I'm curious, does someone plan the excursions for you or do you choose /do it yourself? What a wonderful opportunity for your family to see this part of the world!